High Grade Universal Century: FA-93HWS Nu Gundam HWS

Char's Counterattack features the final climactic battle between Amuro Ray and his nemesis Char Aznable. For the movie, they both get souped-up mobile suits featuring the new Psychoframes which assist in piloting the machines, using the pilot's brainwaves alone. Char gets the Sazabi, while Amuro pilots the v Gundam. The heavy armor only made it to the blueprint stage and was never actually built, though it is represented here in the High Grade Universal Century 1/144 scale line.



These pictures are from before I moved out, when I had access to a decent camera, so the model pictured here is all me. The box is a sizable one, given that it has to house 12 runners, putting it on par with many Master Grade scale kits. Build time was somewhere in the neighborhood of four hours and a little bit more time for painting. Only stickers I used were the eyes and the insignias, painted all the other details myself.



The instructions don't tell you so, but all the pieces are included, allowing you to switch between the normal Gundam and the Heavy Weapons System version fairly easily. The kit has pretty good balance in spite of the Fin Funnels hanging off of its back.



Articulation is par for the course when it comes to HGUC. Any additional articulation would compromise stability and its ability to hold up the larger weapons.



And speaking of weapons, it comes with a lot of them. It's just loaded with accessories (a definite plus), including the armor parts, six Fin Funnels, one Beam Rifle, one Heavy Beam Rifle, one shield, one heavy shield, two different Beam Sabers, and the Bazooka.





Comparison shots with its Master Grade incarnation and with its rival, Sazabi, in the same scale, respectively. The smaller one is the High Grade Universal Century kit, which has, on the whole, much more pleasing proportions than the taller Master Grade, especially in the chest and legs. The High Grade version is much more dynamic-looking. The Sazabi was constructed to be much taller than competing mobile suits, and this is reflected with the two figures here.



Snap on a few pieces, swap a few others and you have the v Gundam HWS, a much bulkier suit. The armor hinders articulation a little bit, but not horribly so. Despite Bandai's best efforts, the Heavy Shield/Rocket Launcher is way heavy and the arm holding it will start sagging pretty quickly with the weight. The Heavy Beam Rifle is still heavy, but not to the same degree.



Looks like a bit more of an formidable opponent for Sazabi with the armor on. Shame Amuro never actually used this configuration in the animation.



Overall, definitely the best kit of the v Gundam that's out there right now. It can be had for a fairly reasonable price, though I paid probably more than is justified only because I wanted to get it right after it was released in Japan and was willing to put up with extra import fees.

The more pictures I have available, the more I can write about. :D